A closing hole bogey denied former Augusta champion Jordan Spieth a share of second at the 87th Masters.
Spieth, and the 2015 Masters Champion, grabbed nine birdies over his final round in a score of 66 for a three-way share of fourth place at seven-under, just a shot behind fellow Masters champ, Phil Mickelson who signed for a 65 to end tied in second with Brooks Koepka (75) on eight-under.
Spieth birdied his opening two holes, three in a row from the eight to 10th holes and then two in succession at 14 and 15 ahead of a birdie at 17 but only to drop a shot at the last.
The Texan’s effort was a best Augusta finish since sharing third place two years but with the 29-year-old admitting he felt ‘mentally fatigued’ at the close of what was a 10th event this New Year.
“I think I played way too much golf coming into this. I came in mentally fatigued, and you overwork this week every year,” said Spieth.
“I played way too much golf in the last — I mean, this is eight out of ten weeks. So I need to change my schedule going forward to be a little sharper this week. I think that has a lot to do with it.
“Then just a little lack of patience with the course being softer, thinking that meant I could try to attack more pins. Same thing I do at The Players every year. You have to let the course come to you out here. I do a better job here than anywhere else, and it left me this week.
“I just feel I got a little bit lazy in picking targets. I probably only had a target for 50 percent of the shots this week, and I like to have them 100 percent of the time. I kind of was trying to remind myself, but there were a few swings Thursday and Friday where I could have really taken it quite a bit deeper and left a few out there.”
However, while admitting to being mentally fatigued Spieth is heading south-east tomorrow for Thursday’s starting RBC Heritage where he is the defending champion, capturing a 13th PGA Tour title thanks to his play-off success over Patrick Cantlay.
As well, the Hilton Head event is now a ‘designated’ PGA Tour event, offering a prize purse of $US 20m. Such a prize purse, boasting a $US 3.6m first prize surely is enough greenbacks to snap anyone out of feeling fatigued.
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